


Wake

by wickedthoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Depressed Steve Rogers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Pining Steve Rogers, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedthoughts/pseuds/wickedthoughts
Summary: Even when Steve doesn't know it, there are miles to go before the line ends.





	Wake

**Author's Note:**

> This was a scrapped beginning for [Untamable.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11670582) I was cleaning out my writing folder and realized it could function as a stand-alone short story. It's sad, but hopeful, and follows the MCU canon through the end of CA:TWS. Mind the tags please.
> 
> Credit to Robert Frost for use of [Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening)

* * *

Steve tells himself it doesn’t hurt so many times that he almost believes it. He can barely feel the pain, but he can’t feel anything else either. The wound doesn’t heal. It festers.

When he can’t pretend anymore, when the red face of his last obligation to pretend disappears into light and screaming, Steve dives the plane toward the ocean below. He thinks about his mother. He thinks about her voice, reading him poetry as he drifted to sleep. _Lovely, dark,_ _and_ _deep._

Peggy tries to stop him over the radio as he stares at his choice, fast approaching. He says what he needs to say to soothe her grief, but he’s thinking about dark, tantalizing woods replaced with icy water. He has no more miles to go. He reached the end of the line months ago when he watched Bucky disappear into air and screaming. When he got the wound.

There’s so much he hasn’t done. Steve wants to tear out the part of him they call Captain America and let  _ him _ drown. There’s so much more that Steve Rogers wants to do, but Captain America did most of those things already. Captain America did them for Steve, and because of him, Steve got everything he ever wanted. Because of him, Steve lost everything that ever mattered, and if he healed from that, he healed wrong. He healed empty. Time to sleep.

There’s no screaming. Peggy’s quiet sobs cut off abruptly and Steve disappears into the silence.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up sixty-seven years later. Death’s been taken from him, too.

Steve’s had enough of a respite that he can pretend again. It’s almost easy, once he gets the hang of it. He investigates this new world. He makes friends. He’s afraid of when they’ll be taken away from him.

He tries not to think about Bucky.

He tries not to think about a right partner waiting for him here in the future. Now, he gathers, he could publicly have the kind of partner he wants. Not Bucky, but someone like him. Steve reminds himself that it’s foolish to grieve for something that never would have been. Bucky never would have touched him the way he wanted, no matter what time they were in.

Steve doesn’t want it. He doesn’t dare.

* * *

 

Two years later, he sees Bucky’s face. His real face, not in a black-and-white photograph or grainy video footage. Impossibly, absurdly, this Hydra assassin has Bucky’s face.

The wound rips open. He can’t move from the influx of pain. He can’t say anything except Bucky’s name.

Steve knows it’s Bucky, even as this strange new version of Bucky asks him who Bucky is. Through the pain, Steve’s trying to figure out the how and the why. He’s trying to get away from the gun Bucky has pointed at him, but his feet aren’t moving. He’s trying to raise his shield to defend himself, but his arm isn’t moving. Steve knows that Bucky doesn’t hurt him. Bucky hurts the people who hurt Steve, and then he glares at Steve for getting hurt.

Blank eyes, a gun pointed at Steve’s head, and Steve doesn’t know  _ why. _

Sam and Natasha save him. They save him from Bucky. He’s figured out the how. The why continues to elude him. He hurts, and he can’t pretend anymore. Hydra took so much from him. He took so much from himself. Steve can’t blame Captain America for this. Captain America will have to clean up this mess for him.

If he can’t save Bucky, if he fails him again, he’ll go back to sleep. Maybe this time it will stick.

It barely hurts when Bucky strikes him. It barely hurts when Bucky stabs him.

It hurts unbearably when he breaks Bucky’s right arm and hears Bucky’s cry of pain. Steve’s not supposed to hurt Bucky, either.

Bucky shoots him. Once, twice, three times, knocking the wind out of him. Captain America still comes through. Hydra will fall, and Steve and Bucky with it. It barely hurts when Bucky beats at Steve’s face with his unforgiving left arm. The prosthetic is amazing. Its implications make Steve’s gut twist.

It hurts worst of all when he sees the recognition in Bucky’s eyes. When Bucky remembers him, and Steve sees the pain that causes him. The Helicarrier continues its descent, and if a well-placed blast from another Helicarrier doesn’t kill them, the crash might, or else the river. They’re almost to the end, and they’re both suffering. Steve feels guilty for that.

Something falls, something breaks. Steve’s falling away from Bucky, away from the horror and pain he put on Bucky’s face. Steve closes his eyes, waiting for the river’s dark embrace. He hopes Bucky will make it through this. He doesn’t know if that’s a good thing for his friend or not, but he hopes regardless.

* * *

 

He wakes up a week later in the hospital. Bucky saved him. Something makes sense again. Hydra didn’t take everything. Sam’s there at his bedside, waiting, and that makes it hurt a little less. Steve should tell Sam to leave him, run, never look back. Sam should leave, before Steve hurts him, too. He should, but Steve’s too selfish to let Sam go.

He reads the file Natasha procures for him. He finds out exactly what Hydra took from Bucky. So much more than what they took from Steve. It’s not remotely comparable.

Steve has to find him. Steve’s made Bucky remember. Made him feel the pain Steve feels. He can’t let Bucky deal with this alone.

It’s his turn to save Bucky. Maybe this time the wound will heal.


End file.
